This is where the biggest advantage of the VA panel version begins. A contrast ratio of around 6000:1 means that during evening viewing, the picture gains depth, and darker scenes in films appear natural and do not fade into grey. It's clear that the blacks are much better than in the IPS panel variant, and this difference is what defines the character of the television. Of course, it's important to remember that the UA7500 does not have local dimming, so one shouldn't expect miracles. The darkest shots won't match those of more expensive televisions, but at least the contrast is stable and sufficient for convincing evening viewing.
Let's get to the point, which is what’s most important in the Mini LED panel: blacks and contrast. The Xiaomi S Pro 2026 is built on a VA matrix, which right off the bat promises deep blacks. On top of that, it features Mini LED backlighting with a very large number of local dimming zones. In the 65-inch variant we tested, we counted as many as 532. That’s a solid figure that should provide precise control over the backlighting. It should be noted that this number is proportional to size – opting for the smaller 55-inch variant will have fewer zones, while larger models will have more.
So, how does the black level perform on the S Pro 2026? The answer is complex.
Overall, it’s really not bad, and we see a clear improvement compared to the problematic model from 2025. As you can see on our measurement charts, the results are occasionally spectacular. In the majority of the film scenes we measured in SDR (standard dynamic range), the contrast could easily be called very good and even comparable to constructions three times more expensive. Well, it could be... and this brings us to the paradox of this model. The problem is how the television manages zones in scenarios other than SDR. As soon as we feed the TV a higher-quality signal, such as an HDR series or Dolby Vision from streaming platforms (Netflix, HBO Max, or Disney+), something strange happens. We have an irresistible impression that the TV suddenly... forgets it was equipped with local dimming zones at all. As shown in our video below, black levels in such scenes resemble more dark gray or navy shades. To this is added a slight flickering of the entire screen. This is a level we would expect from televisions completely lacking local dimming systems. It seems that Xiaomi, over the course of a year, chose to fix one key issue from last year’s 2025 model. And they succeeded – there’s no more annoying “zone disco”, the image is stable. It’s just a shame that when consuming high-quality content (HDR), this entire advanced system becomes completely useless.